I Has a Project

So, Wintergrass came and went this weekend. It is the largest bluegrass festival on the west coast, and the largest indoor festival in the country. Like all Wintergrasses, there was an excess of fun and a severe deficit of sleep, so I'm physically exhausted and mentally jazzed.

Jamming at Wintergrass is almost an event unto itself. Because it is indoors, jam circles will literally jam all night. You can find signed, touring musicians jamming with little old ladies and five year old kids right along side of them. This year I brought some recording equipment with me because I wanted to have some of that music for posterity.

I bought an omni-directional microphone on the way to the festival. An AKG Perception 420. I bought it because it is multi-pattern (I can get figure 8, omni, and cardioid patterns out of it, and it also has a bass cut switch that really helps with low frequency rumble from things like crowds in the hallways.

The plan was to simply get permission to record the group, drop the mic in omni-mode in the middle, and record what came out.

I recorded five tracks from the first jam circle I came from and took the recorder back to my space to listen to the results. I was absolutely dumbfounded at the quality of the recording. Clarity, tone, everything was there. It almost sounded mixed. My idea then grew from "I'm doing this for my own amusement" to "I can put a compilation disk together from this material."

Four days later and I have over 40 tracks down, almost three hours of raw audio from a dozen different jam sessions. I have permission from the festival to produce a concept album, and if they like it they'll put it on the shelf and use it to raise revenue (for the record, Wintergrass is a 501-(c)3 non-profit) I'd like this to become an annual thing: "Monsters in the Halls 201X."

I also have permission of some of the artists to spread their stuff around for feedback. That is where you come in. As I get this stuff edited, I'll link to it here and I'd appreciate your discerning ears.

Re: I Has a Project

Listen to true bluegrass, and help you out at the same time? HECK YEAH! And, I think we should all feel a little honored; Ido. I think it's awesome that you've done this/are doing this. What better way to give back to something you love than this? Fantastic.

Art and beauty are in the eyes of the beholder.What constitutes excellent music is in the ears of the listener.

Re: I Has a Project

This was done on one mic in one try. Because it is a single mic track, it's mono, and there isn't a whole lot to do as far as editing goes. I put a cut filter in at 250Hz to clear up the guitars a bit, and a boost at around 800 to help the vocals out, but other than that, what you are hearing is pretty much raw audio.

Re: I Has a Project

That is literally just a bunch of guys that came together under a stairwell at 2 AM, which is why I call them that. I also have the "3:30 Geezers Outside the Service Hall Players" and the "Sitting Outside the Rayco Stand Between Grand Ballroom Shows Band" and "Four Drunks Play the Blues in the Hallway."

Just for point of reference on how good some of these guys are, the guitar player on that track is a former IBMA flat-picking champion. I didn't know that until last night when I was automating the track to highlight some of his playing and Googled him.

Mal - Well, lady, I must say, you're my kinda stupid.Mal - Jayne, your mouth is talking. You might wanna look to thatKaylee - No power in the verse can stop me. BOOK- you're going to burn in a very special level of hell. A level they reserve for child molesters and people who talk at the theatre.

Re: I Has a Project

Jerome, those tracks are great. Nice music from obviously talented musicians. I have some reasonable mastering software and would be happy to put the files through them for a maybe slight improvement in quality. If you want me to try just let me know you could then judge wether its better or worse and run the copy that sounds best to your ear;.

Re: I Has a Project

We had our Wintergrass followup meeting yesterday, and the festival is still interested. We're formally titling the project "Monsters in the Halls" and hopefully it will become an annual thing. I'm getting crushed by school right now (double entry accountingZZZzzzzzzzz......) so I haven't had as much time as I'd like to dedicate to the tracks, but they're still coming along. That class is over in a couple of weeks, and I'll have more time to dedicate to this then.

Re: I Has a Project

OK!

I have been buried at school so I haven't had a lot of time to work this. I managed to scrape some free time tonight, and just rendered this one. The kid singing is not only a great song writer and singer, but a great human being to boot. A man and his ukelele....

Re: I Has a Project

Re: I Has a Project

"How do I record" is a pretty open question and can be answered in a lot of ways. Do you have equipment now? Are you looking to make some scratch recordings or do you want to produce a demo album? What is your experience with recording? What kind of space do you have available to you? How many people in your band, and what is the instrumentation?

All of those questions will advise how you go about recording. If we know a little more, we can help you a lot more.

Re: I Has a Project

OK, one more!

These two young women were a complete pleasant surprise. The fiddle player was working for me and mentioned that her and her sister were "on tour." I ran into them later that night (morning, actually) and offered to record them and they were kind enough to accept.

This is a Keith Whitley penned song. Fiddle, mountain dulcimer, and my dumb luck to get to put them in front of a mic.